this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2026
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Memes
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A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.
An Internet meme or meme, is a cultural item that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. The name is by the concept of memes proposed by Richard Dawkins in 1972. Internet memes can take various forms, such as images, videos, GIFs, and various other viral sensations.
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I read it as less about the value of the result from some measure of success and more of a question of 'what are you if you simply do what someone/something else tells you to do?' If all you do is enact the orders of the earring, are you still you? Are you even human? If your brain deforms to the point it loses the ability to make decisions or enact your own will, do you even still exist, regardless of whether the rest of your body still moves?
That seems to be the direction, and yet the story also says that its never wrong, nor does the person have to take that choice. Its an aid, but the problem is people turn the aid into a crutch. Which we are seeing with AI in ways, people claiming to do stuff but not really having a clue what they're doing, nor able to fix or change it. But what if you always weighed the earring's advice along with all the other choices and then made the choice that made sense to you? Knowing that the earring isn't wrong in a certain context, but maybe taking other paths that are worse now will lead to better choices later.
I know the warning is that people tend to take the easier route, and at some point it becomes an addiction to just follow the suggestion "just once more".
Part of the point is what 'better' now or later means, and what the point would be in making a decision in the face of the given optimum.
The earring is always telling you to do 'what will make you happiest.' How do you make a decision between 'happiest' and literally anything else? You will 'always regret it' if you do something other than what the earring recommends. Do you think there is anyone in the world, living or dead, who, when faced with the reinforcement conditioning of pleasure and satisfaction when doing one thing and dissatisfaction when doing something else, could maintain, long term, a sense of even the possibility the choice that makes them happy could be the wrong choice?
It ultimately ends up in the same place as many other questions like this. Blissful ignorance or painful freedom? Shall one live in pursuit of pleasure or can there be something of greater value in identity and autonomy?
Personally, I also wonder about its limits. The earring simply tells you what will make you happiest, but there are often situations where your options are extremely limited. If you were stripped of all possessions and left in a foreign land with nothing but the earring, could it tell you to do anything but lay back and go to your happy place while you wait to die? If you are any of the people in our world with less fortunate starting points, could it do anything that wouldn't be actually still worse than the average level of enjoyment for an average person? It doesn't make you happy, just the happiest you can be for now.